


Many Unhappy Returns to Casterly Rock

by Josenka



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Daddy Issues, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Secrets, Historical Fantasy, House Lannister, Mild Language, Mild Twincest, Returning Home, Teen Angst, Westeros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josenka/pseuds/Josenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Squire Jaime returns to Casterly Rock after his thirteenth nameday and winning his first tourney melee, expecting the worse as he suffers the awkwardness between childhood and manhood, not withstanding existing in the shadow of his father and the secret he has with his twin sister...</p><p>
  <i>...When Cersei and he were but waist high to their soaring sire, why, they had believed their father was the Father; really, then, there had been no difference betwixt them as the Hand arbitrated the affairs of all men from Spitstone to the Shadow Tower, even for tree-hugging northmen who smelt of piss and pelts. Maester Creylan and Septa Saranella had devoted days to unravel and unsnarl this conundrum, but the Golden Twins remained steadfast in their faith until they counted nine name days. Oft times, still, Jaime did not doubt his overlord was Judgment reborn because the Warrior had never shielded anyone, especially Tiny Tyrion, from barbed and spiked words lobbed by Father Hand...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Unhappy Returns to Casterly Rock

**Author's Note:**

> This tale is based more on _A Song of Ice and Fire_ , less on "A Game of Thrones", with many historical references taken from semi-canon _A World of Ice and Fire_ to make it more "authentic" amid speculation about the future disappearance of Gerion Lannister

**_Sometime in the Year 279 After the Conquest, along the Great Searoad between Crakehall and Casterly Rock..._ **

“Gods be!” the barefoot boy gasped. “That ain’t a rock!” Gaping, he gazed into the distance where sunlight gushed forth from the firmament. Gilded morning mists melted, unshrouding a mountainous monstrosity beside the Sunset Sea. What awaited ahead looked lionlike, the shape carved and sculpted by men unnamed. “Which gods made that?”  
  
“The Others take me!” his fellow gawker agreed. “It’s gotta be bigger than Harrenhal.”  
  
“It’s so gotta be one of the world’s wonder.”  
  
“You’re such nitwits!” the sandaled wench swaggering behind them scoffed, “the only wonder in Westeros is the Wall.”  
  
“Who cares about a bunch of ice and snow; we've just spent two years staring at that stuff,” the second boy dismissed her. “We wanna see if Rock girls really can spin straw into gold.”  
  
“They shit gold, not spin it.”  
  
_If we shitted gold then the sewers would be corked tight as an Arbor gold from Baelor’s reign and we’d stink as bad as His Blessedness who bathed but once in his reign._ That is what Uncle Gerion would have told them as they strode toward Lannisport for Lann’s Day. Every year multitudes of Westermen celebrated His Cleverness by hoodwinking and hornswoggling strangers during the weeklong Lann’s Carnival, filled with masked follies disparaged by pious pests. Once upon a time, Jaime had been awed by how his uncle bilked and bamboozled in disguises from Braavosi banker to Dornish hedgeknight, begging brother to shrouded septa. But he was always careful to conceal the telltale hair. _The Lion's mane._ Nowadays Jaime hid his own golden locks beneath an old-fashioned cap (like the witless Freys wore), too, so no travelers would shout _“Let’s hear you roar!”_  or scream _“Tywin’s spawn!”_ while pelting him with rocks and sticks at they did to Tiny Tyrion. If any smallfolk harmed him then Ser Ilyn Payne, leading the crimson-coated household guards, would blacken several villages (to name a dozen huts generously) by torch, leaving scores homeless, for scrapes and scratches inflicted upon their future lord; afterward, the heir would receive his own punishment, likely being flogged  by Father himself because _“a real lion doesn’t get thrashed by rabbits.”_  
  
Jaime dawdled onward, accompanied by three knights and four servants. His sorrel rouncey, Copper Coin, trotted, his hooves steady music as they thrummed the level pavement. No destriers rode with this host dressed as well-off traders would be. He owned no tattered, threadbare clothes so he might pretend himself a wayward, runaway apprentice; he had orders (as did his batman, steward, footmen and bootboy) to always be sheathed _“like a lord of the Rock for he must not be mistaken for a tomcat as Lord Tytos was.”_ Shabby and slovenly, he would have enjoyed eavesdropping in the markets and taverns, to hear what whores and sellswords said about his father besides him being Asswiper of the King, Whorelord of the West and Shield of Lann’s Pisspot. His party chattered, Loren and Pelnor often bursting into bawdy, lusty ballads about Jenny of Whorestones and the Prince of Dragonbites because one did not sing salacious songs where the Lion could here-- _and he would!_ \--for he had a thousand lickspittle ears as Bloodraven had a thousand and one eyes.  
  
_At home I’ll have to hear Old Lug Lutelicker warble “The Rains of Castemere”._ Home? Seven hells, Casterly Rock was no home! _It’s a bloody monument from the Dawn Age no one knows shit about._ It was a funereal fortress atop a labyrinth of tunnels which may have been made by the ancient mazemakers of Lorath. Jaime knew this from Uncle Gerion who had taught Tyrion and him many wondrous things beneath the Hall of Hereos, down there where they had wandered deep, searching for abandoned Valyrian blades and skeleton-infested dungeons. If there were books and scrolls below in High Valyrian-- _or Old Tyrish!_ \--they might disclose how to forge and fashion dragongsteel so their family wielded an heir to Brightroar; this discovery would-- _because it must!_ \--prompt the Lion to grin because his sword would be as great other lords paramount-- _“But you need dragonfire to make them!”_ the little will-knows-it-all-soon would snub the fun as he wobbled behind long-legged wanderers.  
  
Crakehall was home. He referred to this refuge as Crakehell like the pages and squires who bethought themselves witty behind the back of Lord Sumner. One night, when Old Summie had taken them to the whorehouse on Boar’s Hill, to celebrate a nameday (Jaime had forgotten whose, but it was not his own), he told drunken lads his home had been Crakehell for aspiring knights since the time of his great-great-great-grandsire breathed. Burly Lord Berion the Boar had refused to eat, drink, fuck, shit in his own castle where he was besieged by mother and wife, maester and septon, pages and squires to learn his letters as befit lords sworn to the Lannisters; no, he could not, he would not read, not even for his dearest daughter Tyana, who rode and wrestled as well as her crooked-toothed brothers yet had won the eye and hand of scholarly Ser Corlys Lannister. Soused lads had chuckled and chortled at the tale, sounds unheard in the haunted halls of Casterly Rock from where phantoms fled when Tywin was in residence.  
  
Jaime envied the ghosts, goblins and grumkins who evaded the Lion of the Rock, unlike the heir who would have been hunted by switch wielding stablehands if he was not as punctual as the gold-plated town clocks of Lannisport (erected when Ser Tyland was Master of Ships) when late to lessons. Each and every homecoming was a bleak and drear occasion nowadays, initiated with dungeonlike interrogations with his sire-- _“Who are the bannermen of House Stark? What is the sigil of House Santagar? When did Norwin reign as King of the Rock?”_ \--with brief breaks to relieve his bowels before he returned for recitation of Targaryen kings in any direction demanded, backward, forward, heavenward, all while he stood one-footed while balancing a lance above his head. Dinner and supper were funereal feasts where no one spoke, not even sweet, spunky Cersei who stared down at her plate, still seething over losing the Dragon Prince to a flat-chested, mealy-mouthed Martell maiden. Loudly, golden cutlery scraped against intricate ceramics from Volantis which Damon the Grey Lion had bought his lady; once, this grating and grinding noise could be bore no more, so he, then, at the age of one-and-ten, had took command of the courtesies expected at table in halls and hovels elsewhere in the realms.  
  
_“Sir, where is Tyr--”_  
  
_“Squires are to be seen and not heard until they’re knights,”_ stone-faced Father had reminded Jaime (again). _“The trifles of the tiltyard will remain there unless you’ve won a tourney with two-and-thirty fighters.”_  
  
Twin eyes rose and widened as Cersei had waded into the fray to fight alongside her male half, _“Father, a woman almost flowered has leave to speak at supper in other homes.”_  
  
_“We are not other homes!”_ he had barked. _“We’re not like the Lannys, Lannetts and Lantells who you’ve been visiting of late, gadding about without your septas.”_  
  
Sullenness had rolled Cersei’s eyes, _“Jaime doesn’t need to walk from bed to pisspot with wardens guarding his prick.”_  
  
_“Princesses don’t use debased language!”_ the Lion had been roused. _“You’ll have the right to speak like a Flea Bottom whore if you had a dragon.”_  
  
_“Very well, Father, then use my dowry to buy dragon eggs from Asshai,_ ” she had pleaded. _“I can become a Lioness of the Skies who wages and wins wars for you.”_  
  
Most fathers would laugh and smile at their offspring in the last throes of childhood fancies, but theirs had not; no, the grim, somber lines had not retreated from his face, unbreakable as dragonsteel, as he had glowered at her.  _“I’ll not squander your lady mother’s fortune on hornswogglers from Slaver’s Bay.”_  
  
_“It’s my money!”_ she bellowed. _“You’ve never given me a groat of it, not even for Lann’s Day!”_  
  
_“I won’t have you be a thriftless lackwit like my father!”_  
  
Jaime slowed his horse as his innards wrenched, as they did when returning to the Rock. No mead had trespassed his lips since supper lest he be ill by the roadside, retching up mashed turnips like Garlan the Gross had at table during the tourney feast at Silverhall. If men and horses alike dined and grazed at Goldilock’s Inn and these non-noble steeds walked-- _no galloping allowed!_ \--the remaining five leagues then it would be near nightfall when they arrived to the summit keep, thus Jaime would avoid one awkward meal--  
  
“Make way, make way!” a terrible, tumultuous sound clamored. “Scoot aside you sodding nudniks! Make way!”  
  
Jaime journeyed from daydream to nightmare, trembling with the coming of the crimson herald flanked by a half-score of horsemen in gilded helms to harry wayfarers who wore no sigils.  
  
“M’lord,” Ser Dinadon Dunnock boomed so the lowborn would know what grand, golden personage ambled amongst their lot, “His Lordship would like you to arrive by evenfall, y’know. He’s having honeywine ham, cucumber knights, strawberry sallet, and cheese pastries served tonight in your honor.”  
  
Feverish anger sprawled across his face, creeping and crawling like wildfire. Seven hells, he was being bribed like a cranky child to come home by the blood-sucking Lion licker who feasted yet on the glory of yesteryears, long ago, when his spear (among several) escorted Tytos’ Whore to the dockside to be sold to Lysani merchants. It was little wonder Ser Dinadon was called the Dim when he had no sieve between mind and mouth. Uncle Gerion was thrice as thoughtful as Dim, sifting out most bluntness when demanded by the imposing presence of his eldest brother.  
  
“If you’d be so good to remove that silly-nilly cap too, M’Lord, y’know. Your father--”  
  
_By all means, Lannisters should be seen, but keep their roars in reserve._ No stand ensued as Jaime unsheltered his Lion's Mane for public perusal; for less than a halfpenny, travels could gawk at gold threads sprouting from his head. He knew the penalties for spurning lordly orders were innumerable lectures on duty and discipline; their harshness was threefold when bootboys and laundresses tattled on him, eager to behold lordlings beaten but seldom did lions employ fists when stares chastised cubs best. _Our family must show but one face, not seven, to remain foremost among lords paramount._  
  
When Cersei and he were but waist high to their soaring sire, why, they had believed their father was  _the_ Father; really, then, there had been no difference betwixt them as the Hand arbitrated the affairs of all men from Spitstone to the Shadow Tower, even for tree-hugging northmen who smelt of piss and pelts. Maester Creylan and Septa Saranella had devoted days to unravel and unsnarl this conundrum, but the Golden Twins remained steadfast in their faith until they counted nine name days. Oft times, still, Jaime did not doubt his overlord was Judgment reborn because the Warrior had never shielded anyone, especially Tiny Tyrion, from barbed and spiked words lobbed by Father Hand.  
  
Tongue stilled like a Silent Sister, Jaime brooded the leagues left to Casterly Rock. Horses cantered _climp-climp-clomp_. Ornamental armor clinked and clanked with each hoofbeat. Wagons, wheelbarrows and walkers made way for shining swordsmen on the Lionsroad, its official designation forgotten in the shadow of the Rock. Jaime recalled little as he rode through ogling onlookers, long accustomed as he was to leers from knights known to take older squires to bed. Dour, sour faces flittered by him until his escort reached the Lion’s Mouth where loyal soldiers stood in stoic imitation of their lord. From there, the cobbled climb twisted heavenward until they reached Caster’s Keep, a ruin of the First Men, so said decrepit Maester Peryck. Finally, they came to the glitzy gates gleaming outside the Lion’s Den, open to welcome the heir.  
  
Across the lengthy yard, where Lion’s Paws, Goldspurs and Dragon’s Breath bulbs yet slept, flanked by livered retainers, attendants and servants, waited Father and Cersei for him. Tywin, the Titan of Lannisport, was stern, solemn and straight-backed in black bedecked by Lannister colors, but his face was befallen by new wrinkles. Proud and splendid, Cersei wore crimson silk with gold-threaded whorls at the edges of her dress, its tight bodice and dagged sleeves marking her full flowering; Jaime desired to descry through her womanly weeds to behold her glory which must make the Maiden mad in the jealous fashion, not the joyous kind which snatched Jaime. All fears and thoughts of Father were forgotten as he exchanged emerald eyes with his elder twin. With one glance he knew she was unchanged by time in King’s Landing whilst their sire spurned her suitors.  
  
At last, Jaime dismounted, surrendering Copper Coin to Pelnor before his companions, wanted and unwanted, departed, along with servants commanded to mark his arrival. Only Ilyn Payne lingered, eager to butcher anyone who beleaguered Father with trifling petitions. Fearsome, ferocious eyes studied him like horseflesh, fault-finding as Septon Vallen had been when impious cubs misremembered the Seven-- _“No, younglings, the Crone is not Maggy Spicer!”_ So, what would Father condemn now?  
  
“Father,” Jaime bowed his head. “Sister.”  
  
Cersei offered a shy curtsy that fooled Father and the Maiden but not him. _Every squire I'd know would go to war for her kiss._ Finally, for once, he was forced to look down at her, towering over by three inches.  
  
“Son, you’re taller than last we met,” his sire greeted him gravely. “How did you fair at Silverhill a fortnight ago?”  
  
Of course, omnipotent Father already knew, but Jaime answered nonetheless, “Sir, I won the melee without losing any teeth.” He expected his self-scorn to be criticized; he had heard Ser Aldegar Yew tell his son _“Melees are for hedgeknights and sellswords, not my heir.”_  
  
“That’s good, close combat will better prepare you for the many battles to come.”

Incredulous, Jaime gawped, incapable of reply.  Where were those grumbles about how third-rate that tourney was? No great houses, no lords paramount had attended, not even Mace Oafgarden had come--  
  
“Come inside, Brother,” Cersei distracted him with timid tones as she loosely took his arm. “I’ve overseen a feast for you since you couldn’t celebrate your last nameday with me. First, you must needs take a bath; I don’t want Cousin Cleos mistaking you for a spitboy again.”  
  
“Shall all our aunts and uncles be here?” he inquired as she led him inside, not asking outright about Gerion. It was unwise to do when His Lordship could overhear mention of _“unfilial ticks”_ who quarreled and squabbled with him for sport. These games betimes led to banishment for the unsettled son who would not languish in Lannisport like so many disgraced kinsmen did; three months ago, he had sojourned to Oldtown, eager to meet Archmaester Merlyn--or was it Merwin? Myrdin? Mordred?  
  
“Many of our father’s and mother’s siblings will be here, along with Uncle Kevan's newborn Lancel,” her meek mask revealed, underneath which she smiled. “Only Uncle Gerion's absent, having journeyed to Dorne.”  
  
_What’s that bloody bugger doing in Dorne now?_ He hoped Gerion did not bethink himself helpful to broker marriage between Prince Oberyn and Lady Cersei, not when the Lioness was reserved for the king-to-be, Rhaegar, after his sickly, sallow wife died. _Likely he’s looking for more lore in the vaults of Sunspear._ He had educated Jaime and Tyrion in the merits of dry air preserving Valyrian scrolls and Rhoynish corpses alike.  
  
“More ravens have come from the Red Keep and Dragonstone,” Father announced to his offspring as if to awe them with his importance as Asswiper to the King; they had perceived his prominence since their first memories so why inform them? “The King’s feuds offer me but a smidgen of time for my family these days.”  
  
And so, face furrowed, Father separated from the Golden Twins. Their arms linked tighter. Eyes dashed and darted to see that no servants spied them as they glided into shadow where light did not ignite flicks and flashes of golden tresses. Lips locked. His hands squeezed her breasts and squashed her nipples, hardened thorns beneath her bodice. She fondled his livened loins like to squirt seed in his breeches as it did nights he dreamed of her, laying in bed alongside him as his lady, more beauteous than Dragons with silvery hair and indigo eyes. Her tongue breeched his lips, slithering like a viperess down his throat that poisoned him with lust. As his main swordhand hitched up her skirts, footsteps clomped within their hearing. They desisted from desire but flushed flesh betrayed them. If they were caught again like this-- _the Others fucking take me first!_ \--he would be dispatched to the Wall and she to the Sacred Septry of Alysanne where noblewomen were maids evermore with scarred faces and maimed breasts.  
  
As it approached, they turned toward the noisome noise; Cersei sneered at its arrival although she remained blanched with fright: “Oh, it’s only Tyrion.”  
  
“And it’s only Cersei, the sweetest sister in the world!” Tiny Tyrion lisped sarcasm beyond his six years. He smiled to impress his big brother with many missing cub teeth. “Jaime, she’s letting me come to your feast.”  
  
“It’s less humiliating then you hiding under the table like a stray cat.”  
  
“No, it’s not.”  
  
“Shut up, imp!”  
  
Their little brother grinned, “Jaime, she’s been filching Father’s Arbor for--”  
  
“Silence you urchin!” she snarled at the halfchild, like to smash his small noggin her fists. “If you tell anyone else I’ll sell you to Myrish cock merchants.”  
  
“Jaime, do I really look like a rooster?” wide mismatched eyes pleaded as she clucked at him. “Cersei says cock merchants’ll put my fingers in love potions.”  
  
Jaime laughed at the impish earnestness, “Don’t fear, they don’t travel to the Westerlands often.”  
  
“But Maggy the Frog’ll many uses for him,” Cersei gnashed her teeth as she nettled Tyrion nearer tears. “She likes to devour ooey-gooey dwarf eyeballs with wildling stew for Maiden’s Day.”  
  
“Cersei,” Jaime frowned at her vitriol, “you’re too old to devote yourself to terrifying him like this.”  
  
“The Others bugger you!” her catlike eyes chafed him. “Why’re you always shielding this monster who killed our mother?”  
  
_She’s not the only lady to ever die in childbed_. “Knights’re tasked with defending the small.”  
  
“Noble twiddle-twaddle from smallfolk tales,” she spat. “I never knew a knight in King’s Landing to protect Skagosi, grumkins and snarks.”  
  
She stomped away from the sight of dwarves and squires, united in their shield wall of brotherhood. Her anger would ebb within hours when effervescent torrents besieged her dolorous heart with desire. She would crave the one who loved her unmitigated, with more mercy than the Mother, who relieved her forlorn existence (and his) of exactitude demanded by Father Lion. Even in the company of his fellow squires, Jaime was as unfulfilled as his Cersei among noble maids who practiced calligraphy and embroidery behind bulwarks built of stones and septas. Why, he even prayed to the Maiden his sister remained unmarried through their sixteenth name day so they, like Uncles Tygett and Gerion had, could tour the Free Cities together, even if sour-breathed Septa Saranella and long-faced Septa Lilane would be there too.  
  
“Jaime,” Tiny Tyrion pulled Jaime by his swordarm sleeve, “how long will you be home?”  
  
_This isn’t home._ “Little more than a fortnight, unless the King declares war.” _Which would be over piffling comments if Aerys is truly madder than Danelle of Harrenhal._  
  
“Cersei says he breaks his fasts with wildfire.”  
  
“Do you believe her?”  
  
“Only if he really turns into a dragon!”  
  
_He’d probably be feral like Cannibal._ “Have you gotten any new dragon toys?”  
  
“Toys!?” Tiny Tyrion scoffed as he walked unsteadily alongside Jaime. “I’m too big for toys.”  
  
“Too big? Why, I still play with wooden swords.”  
  
“That’s practice.”  
  
_Well, isn’t he smugger than a maester’s arse._ “So, what do you do when not ‘practicing’ High Valyrian?”  
  
“I read books, silly.”  
  
Jaime grinned, “Have you finished the _The Seven-Pointed Star_ yet?”  
  
“It’s insipid,” Tyrion sniffed like Father. “But Septon says I can quote more than Father ever remembered.”  
  
_It’s the Mother’s mercy Father doesn’t emphasize the Faith, too_. “Isn’t the first knight Hugor of the Hill the most absolutely amazing man ever?”  
  
“Andals’re boring hillmen, but Valyrians totally aren’t,” the little brother avidly insisted. “Uncle Gerion wants me looking for everything about their dragons in King Cerion’s scrolls.”  
  
_How long ago did he reign?_ “I heard our uncle’s gone to Dorne.”  
  
“He’s looking for dragons there, too,” the lisper replied in solemn tones when he was wont to squeal over them-- _”I wanna ride a gold and black speckled skybeast named Spot!"_ “Jaime, he says we’ve got dragon blood.” The elder brother laughed but Tiny Tyrion had put on a pensive face that reminded Jaime of their ever frowning father. “No, really, it’s true! He says Lann the Clever’s not Andal; he’s not even Valyrian! He’s Tyrish. Lann’s short for Laenorys and he came here eight hundred years ago with his Valyrian wives Tyrista and Gaerys.”  
  
_Gerion shouldn’t feed codswallop to Tyrion when his life’s hard enough without lies._ “Those names certainly sound Targaryen-like.”  
  
“And Ty, it means ‘warrior’ in Tyrish, did you know that? It was was spoke long, long ago, before the Valyrians burnt the city.”  
  
Jaime chuckled, “That excellent sense when Father’s a ‘warrior’ who wins.” _Except in court clashes with Aerys._  
  
“And your name, Jaime, it’s a corruption of Gaemon. It means ‘deed’ in Tyrish and Valyrian, the super-old kind. You’ll do more noble deeds than Gaemon the Glorious!”  
  
“Does our uncle know what Cersei means?”  
  
Tiny Tyrion huffed, “No, but it should be ‘nastiest sister ever’.”  
  
Jaime knelt so his emerald eyes were level with those of his brother, jade and onyx stones, adamant orbs as stolid (if not as stubborn) as their Valayrian steel-willed sire wore when either Hand or Father. “I know Cersei’s very prickly,” he explained. “She’s afraid having an impish brother might ruin her marriage prospects be--”  
  
“She told me she’s gonna be Rhaegar’s Queen when the King dies.”  
  
_I don’t want her fucking a cuckoo crazy Targaryen._ “No, she’ll be Queen of Love at a tourney.” _Yes, she’ll be my queen, draped in emerald and crimson, upon a golden lion throne and--_  
  
“And me!” Tyrion shouted. “I can be King of the Dwarves!”  
  
_Gods, no, don’t tell me he’s getting fancies of knighthood._ “Have you read _The Seven Dwarves of Dorne_?”  
  
“It’s stupider than _Spotted Pate and the Storm Princess_.”  
  
“I know, they’re silly tales,” Jaime agreed. “Merrett Frey’s a fellow squire who finds those simple stories as difficult as straightening a gorget.”  
  
“Father says all Freys are witless wretches,” Tyrion repeated their sire who had deplored (and still did) Aunt Genna wedding a whey-faced weasel from the Two Towers. “Uncle Gerion told him he’s going to search for Brightroar!”  
  
“When did he tell you--”  
  
“Oh, little lordling, you shouldn’t’ve run off,” a syrupy voice stuck them, terrifying Tiny Tyrion more than Cersei ever had. “Sweetling, you’ll need to be your cleanest if you’re allowed at table.”  
  
“I don’t reek!” Tiny Tyrion protested as his hump-shouldered nursemaid snatched him. Wormlike, he writhed and wriggled in pasty, pox-scarred arms but he was squashed tighter to her crumpled bosom like a suckling cub. She was an unlettered Lanwald from Lanstan’s Keep (really a five-roomed hovel) who bethought her charge a sweet, sassy babe who read _Jonquil’s Fool_ and _Tales of Ser Mushroom_ to her before his bedtime. Jaime recalled Father had employed her as a boon to a taster and bodyguard who had died in King’s Landing through poison. “Dreda, I took a bath yesterday.”  
  
“You stink like old books,” she cheerfully scolded. “You kept sneaking off to Tyriel’s vault at night, don’t you?”  
  
Jaime listened as Tiny Tyrion quarreled with his caregiver who chattered on and on and on about all the sweets her sweetling would eat tonight-- _”Lemony lemoncakes for my little lordling!”_ after his bath, scoured, scrubbed and shined more than the gold plate had been this morning. Voices vanished from the vacated corridors where he stood solitaire. No squires. No stewards. No servants. No one--none!--here to halt his mind from woolgathering, time to comb through woebegone fleeces, stashed in nooks and niches, long neglected for lance and longsword. This quietude disturbed him after months at Crakehall inhabited by rowdy lads and lords learning warcraft who had no ills beyond bruises earned from the master-at-arms, now that lordling bullies had been vanquished like Argilac the Arrogant. Adrift, he wandered the way to his chamber (far, far away from his Cersei), without anyone keen to draw his bath or stoke his fire; if was as if he was shipwrecked in the wastelands outside the seven hells, where the dead contemplated their sins before Judgement...  
  
No, this was what Maester Tandred at Crakehall had described as _“the breach between the child and the man”_ which Jaime traveled. The ancient man had explained and expounded on how awareness pivoted inward, especially thoughts, as men wielded reason over fancies and feelings to do more than animals. He described the overwhelming waves of melancholy which would unsettle him for days, perhaps weeks, but he must needs persevere, obtaining such noble graces as forbearance. Lads lost forever in the forlorn rupture lived, yes, but their existence oft led them to savagery which shortened their time here; many maesters and travelers had recorded few wildlings who counted more than thirty namedays. Yes, indeed, Jaime concluded, it was this strangeness beleaguering him like winged bloodsuckers did at dusk in Springs and Summers.  
  
_The world seems disjointed, but warriors don’t brood like jilted bards about it._ It was time to shuck his childhood fears as he had nail-biting and nose-picking if he were ever to be confidant of the Lion as Cersei was on occasion. Let it be Uncle Gerion and Tiny Tyrion who dwelt in dreams of dragonfire and dragonsteel brandished by wayward lions. _I must roar._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in July 2015.
> 
> Disclaimer: This fanfic is for fantasy fun, not profit.


End file.
